Atlantic Crime
Published July 21, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
A timid squaddie named Barry Cheshire, banished to his dingy basement with an invalid dachshund after his wife took up with another man, takes his dog out for a walk and encounters a young thug with two vicious dogs. After the man threatens him with a knife, he manages to trip over one of his dogs into a pond, and the harmless dachshund owner leaves, only to learn the next day that the man died. After he goes to the police to confess to murder, DS Declan Miller is convinced, unlike his boss, that he’s innocent and manages to prove it. But then the wife’s obnoxious boyfriend, living upstairs from Barry, is murdered at his front door and Barry is a suspect again, in a mystery where the protagonist detective mainly is busy untangling the mistakes and misunderstandings of those around him as a comedy of errors plays out.
The third entry in this series set in depressed Blackpool is, like the previous, relatively lighthearted compared to the author’s Tom Thorne series. Declan Miller is a wisecracker and a thorn in his more serious colleagues’ sides. Working in a city beset with unemployment, drugs, and general decay, he’s attuned to the absurd side of life. Even when captured by the bad guys he keeps up a patter of observations and jokes, unwilling to be intimidated. In his private life, he talks to his dead wife, makes tentative gestures toward helping his skittish drug-addicted and homeless daughter, and participates in ballroom dancing. He may annoy those around him with his banter, but he has good instincts and a strong sense of justice.
Billingham has experience as a stand-up comic, so giving his detective the smart aleck affect of classic gumshoes may come naturally. It could be wearying to work with DS Miller, but for readers its all good fun in a story full of pratfalls and farcical criminal mistakes interleaved with more serious material, all displaying Billingham’s characteristic smart dialog, steady pacing, and memorable characters.